Plum Hill Vineyards is a small, family owned winery built on a historical dairy
farm in a pastoral setting, nestled between the cities of Forest Grove and
Gaston, Oregon. We feature quality hand crafted
wines in limited quantities. Currently we grow and/or have available
for tasting Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Rose’, Riesling,
Müller-Thurgau, and Schönburger.

Come visit our warm and inviting tasting room and gift shop featuring
wine-related gift items as well as arts and crafts created by local artisans or
enjoy a picnic with views of Mt. St. Helen's and Mt. Adams from our covered
picnic area.

Forward:

First let me thank Keith and
Trudy Kramer of Kramer Vineyards for helping this dream come true and supporting
us all along the way.
When we originally moved to Oregon,
we wanted a little land with our house so that we could someday have a small
vineyard. This dream is a result of living for many years in the shadow of the
NapaValley
in California
and being a major consumer of wine. Now our dream has came true!

Our Philosophy behind Plum Hill Vineyard:

We believe that to make good wine you must first start with
great fruit. We want to put only the best possible fruit in our wine. In order to
achieve that goal, we started with a prime vineyard site in the northern end of
Oregon's WillametteValley,
northwest of Forest Grove. The site is comprised with very deep weathered,
uniform Kilton soil, at an ideal elevation (above the
frost and fog) and exposure (south facing). Another plus is the close proximity
to our house (it’s right next door). Our Second site is
located north of Gaston on Old highway 47. The soils at this site are from the
Melbourne Association. Melbourne soils are well drained and they have a
surface layer of dark-brown silty clay loam. The upper part of the subsoil is
dark yellowish-brown silty clay loam, and the lower part is brown silty clay.
Effective rooting depth is more than 60 inches. However, we have dug to a
debt of 7 feet and found no change in soil texture

However site selection is only part of a larger picture of making a great wine.
You need a lot of friends (Scott, Al, Bob, Henry, Joyce, Tom, Kathy, Joyce (Demo
Diva), Jerry, Larry, Judy, Toby, Chuck, Kelly, Allison, Randy, Henry, Joyce,
Mike, Russell, and Keith) to help you plant and you also need great wine makers
and mentors, enter Keith, Trudy, and Kim Kramer, to turn the fruit into wine. To bring premier Pinot Noir grapes to their full potential, we are
adopting sustainable vineyard practices that emphasize flavor over production
volume. These practices — such as high density planting, shoot thinning,
cluster removal, avoidance of the use of harsh pesticides and herbicides, — increase
cultivation costs and reduce the amount of fruit that can be harvested. For
sophisticated wine lovers, however, such a tradeoff will be well worth the effort.

Our goal is to grow the best fruit possible and be
personally involved with each plant. The small size of the plot allows this
goal to be met and the site to be maintained by one person, if needed. It is so personal
that the early growing vines were given names such as:

John Wine

Cork Douglas

General Cluster

Albert
Vinestein

Alexander the
Grape

Sir
Wineston Churchill

Oprah
Winefrey

Wine Oh

Winenona Jug

Wine
Newton

The Grape
Santini

The
Grapeful Dead

The Grape Gatsby

Sergio De
Burgundy

Wine Gretzky

Babe Root

Viney Testaverde

Jonathan Vintners

Root Busby

Fermento Llamas

Grape O Marx

Pinotcchio

Mama Cask

Mel Tokay

Marilyn Merlot

Milton Barrel

Minnesota Vats

Johnny Casks

Crush Limbaugh

Gregory Pick

Vats Domino

Omar Carafe

Barrel O'Connor

Clark Grapel

Betty Grapel

Vine Scully

My Cousin Viney

Fermento
Valenzuela

Danny De Vino

Bin Franklin

Eddie
Decanter

Bin Casey

Paul Harvest

A special thanks goes to
my good friend, Pat Mckee, for having such a twisted mind and
coming up with many of the names.

If you have any ideas for
names, please send us an email.

SITE LOCATION, HISTORY AND SOIL

Our locations are in the northern reaches of the
WillametteValley, the first vineyard is sited on a
hill with views of the expanding cities of Forest
Grove
and Verboort. The vineyard site starts about a quarter of the wayup the hill, normally above the fog
line,at an elevation of approximately
400 feet facing due east, topping out at approximately500 feet with exposures bending from the
southeast through the southwest. The larger Vineyard is located north of the
city of Gaston with elevations from 250 - 350 feet.

Forest Grove - Plum Hill Vineyard site

This site is composed of very deep, well drained Kinton soil. Kinton is a silty loam of marine sedimentary origin. It has a PH of 5.1
-6.0.

The site was originally owned by the once famous Tabata
Brown, and then turned into a commercial prune orchard for many years. When the
dried prune market became unprofitable, the trees were removed, the site was
replanted with ryegrass and timothy. Part of the land had a small number of
Christmas trees planted as a FFA project that had
gone bad. You know the story, kid plants them and dad gets to maintain them,
identical to the "I'll take care of the dog if you get one" kid story. Removal of the Christmas trees in January
and February of 2004 was the first step in achieving our dream. We'll always
remember the rain and mud of 2004 and dragging a chain to each tree stump, all
151 of them, while the tractor driver sat in an enclosed, dry cab.

With the expert direction of Keith Kramer, of Kramer Vineyards, we designed the
layout and planted the first 2 blocks of vineyard in 2004 on the on the upper
end of the slope. There is a very interesting story behind the lay out and how
900 plants became 1600. In the spring of 2005, the lower remaining block was
planted.

VARIETIES PLANTED

In 2004, the top 2 blocks were planted with a mixture of
Pinot Noir clones: one block consisting of 10 rows of 777 on phylloxera-resistant rootstock 3309. The other block of 10
rows was planted with clone 667 on phylloxera-resistant
rootstock 101-14.

In 2005, the remaining lower block of 13 rows was planted in
Pommard on a different phylloxera-resistant rootstock
than either of the previous plantings. Our Pommard is on a root stock called
Riparia Gloire or RG for
short.The
Riparia rootstock has demonstrated the need for watering early in the growth
cycle and is known to ripening early at other wineries, as well as, in some
studies at OSU.

We planted 1,452 plants per acre (6 feet between rows and 4
feet between plants). Normal Pinot Noir vineyard plantings can range from
8-12 foot wide rows and plants up to 6 feet apart. (In California some of the Zinfandel vineyards
have only 400 plants per acre.) The high density planting technique we used
maximizes the amount of leaf area per acre, significantly improving ripening
potential and tenor. With such narrow rows, “tractor blight” is quite common on
the wooden posts. There is only 2 inches of clearance on each side of our
Kubota L3400 tractor, daydreaming while driving can cause damage (personal
observation and experience).

We strongly believe that superior wines will only result from vineyards that
are consistently managed to low yields, which in Oregon looks to be at around 2 to 2.5
tons/acre. We crop the Forest Grove site at 1 -1 1/2 tons per acre.

Gaston Plum Hill Vineyard Site

This site was planted in the
spring of 2008. We purchased this site in September of 2007 and started the
conversion from an abandoned dairy farm into vineyards, winery, and a tasting room.
Many in the valley know the site as "Bloomer's Dairy" while older residents
remember it as the "Haberman Dairy." The property as been a dairy farm since the
early 1900's. The primary soil at this location is Melbourne which is formed
in residuum and colluvium
weathered from sedimentary rock. Melbourne soils are well drained. They have a surface
layer of dark-brown silty clay loam. The upper part of the subsoil is dark
yellowish-brown silty clay loam, and the lower part is brown silty clay.
Effective rooting depth is more than 60 inches. However, we have dug to a debt of 7
feet and found no change in soil texture

In a representative profile the surface
layer is dark-brown and dark yellowish-brown silty clay loam about 10
inches thick. The upper part of the subsoil is dark yellowish-brown silty clay
loam about 36 inches thick, and the lower part is brown silty clay about 36
inches thick. The profile is slightly acid and medium acid in the surface layer, medium
acid in the upper part of the subsoil, and strongly acid in the lower part of
the subsoil and in the substratum. Soil acidity ranges from pH 6.2 in the upper
4-6 inches to pH 5.6 at lower depths.

VARIETIES PLANTED

In 2008, we planted with a mixture of
Pinot Noir clones: one block consisting of 777 self rooted, another of 667 on phylloxera-resistant rootstock 3309, 101-14. and some
self rooted plants, A large block of 115 on phylloxera-resistant
rootstock 101-14. and 3309. a small block of 1018 on 3309 root stock
was planted along with a block of self rooted Pommard.

We have also planted Pinot
Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Riesling. We planted Schönburger in
March of 2010. We are the only commercial winery to have it planted in
Oregon and Washington. One other Oregon winery has 4 plants but we don't believe
4 plants provide enough fruit for commercial operations. Schönburger
is basically a cross between Muscat and Pinot Noir. We're excited to bring this
grape to the public.

We're hoping to do more
planting this summer and fall on the south slope of the property next to Etters
road.

Our spacing at the Gaston site
is 8 foot isles and 5 feet between plants which should reduce the amount to
tractor blight on the poles and plants.